Monday, July 25, 2011

Overseas Recording Broadcasting Service entertained British troups during the war.Every Night Something AwfulHans Koert The New Organolians on a Service Library ENSA Disc (English)De New Organolians op een Engelse "V-Disc" uit de Tweede Wereldoorlog (Nederlands)I love to nose about at junk shops and jumble sales and a month ago we had such a local fair in our village in the southwest part of The Netherlands. In a pile of old 78rpm recordings, most rubbish, I found one that attracted my attention - an lp-sized record with a yellow-white Service Library label.2460. Roses from the South by the New Organolians. Released as Services Library 2.E.N. 9418. / M.K. 4961 ca. 1944( Hans Koert collection)These 78rpm records were produced by the Overseas Recorded Broadcasting Service of the Navy, Army and Air Force and recorded for ENSA. On the label also the words Not For Sale. I payed one euro for it - I hope the British forces will turn a blind eye to that..........

2461. Mother's Silver Wedding Day // 2462. Minor Mood Released as Services Library 2.E.N. 9419. / M.K. 4961 ca. 1944(Hans Koert collection)I found out that ENSA stands for: Entertainments National Service Association, an organization founded in 1938-1939 to provide entertainment for the British and allied armed forces and war workers during the Second World War. During the war it provided all types of entertainment, from full-length plays and symphony orchestras to concert parties and solo instrumentalists, not only in the camps, factories, and hostels of Great Britain but on all war fronts, from the Mediterranean to India and from Africa to The Faeroes, I found at the internet (source: answers.com/ )I read too that the soldiers, who were entertained by the ENSA, sometimes translated the acronym ENSA as Every Night Something Awful.Most of the records, released by the ENSA were to provide recorded entertainment to the forces stationed in Britain and and the war fronts during the Second World War, like the V-Discin the US Army. Most of the records were 15 up to 30 minutes radio shows, but there were also studio recordings, like mine. My record contains three tunes by a group featuring an organ. I found out that the New Organolians were directed by Sgt. Jimmy Leach.

Jimmy Leach (1905-1975)( source: turnipnet.com/)Jimmy Leach started, aged 21, to play professional as a pianist and organist with Henry Hall. He became a celebrated composer in England of mostly light music pieces. In 1939, aged 34 years old, he joined the British army, like so many young men did in those days and founded, together with Hammond organist Harry Farmer, a group called Organola, later the Organolists and featured four, somethimes five members who played Hammond organ, piano, bass, drums and guitar, but sometimes also violin and clarinet. During the war they changed its name in the New Organolians. Jimmy Leach and his bands became popular until the late 1960s, in British radio programs like Music While You Work, which started in June 1940 and lasted until the 1960s. ( source: turnipnet.com/)Jimmy Leach and one of his bands ( source: turnipnet.com/)The music on the record is light organ music and not really my piece of cake, although Minor Mood entertains me better as it has a great violin player. Can someone inform mewho plays the violin on that track?I found out that these 78rpm records seem to be rather rare and on the intenet I found only three more records by this (New) Organolians released by the Service Library:1547 & 1548 2EN-7630-1 Sgt Jimmy Leach and his Organolians:Shoemaker's Holiday // If I Had My Way (vocal: Leslie Douglas ?)1549 & 1550 2EN-7631-1 Sgt Jimmy Leach and his Organolians RememberHow Deep Is The Ocean? (vocal: Leslie Douglas ?)1727 & 1728 2EN-7999-1 The New Organolians directed by Sgt Jimmy Leach ? (waltz)It Can't Be Wrong (vocal: Gerry Fitzgerald) // Victory Polka MK 4143 (vocal: Gerry Fitzgerald)1735 & 1736 2EN-8003-1 The New Organolians directed by Sgt Jimmy Leach The River Of The Roses (vocal: Gerry Fitzgerald ?) // Steamboat Rag (That's A Plenty)1737 & 1738 2EN-8004-1 Bottle Party / Commando PatrolThe catalogue numbers for these are 3964 and 4143 and 4145, so I guess mine (4961) must be from the end of the Second World War ca. 1944 ( Source: mgthomas.co.uk) I hope someone can give me some more info about these rare British "V-discs"Hans Koertkeepswinging@live.nlTwitter: #keepswinging

I' m not a real 78rpm collector, but fascinated by special or rare seen record labels. This 78rpm record, LP-sized, by the New Organolians, released by the Overseas Recorded Broadcasting Service fascinated me and I found out that it was similiar to the better known V-Dusc, released by the US Army during the Second World War. Keep Swinging loves to point you to this kind of rare seen records. If you don't want to miss any contribution, follow the blog at Twitter: #keepswinging or ask for its free newsletter; keepswinging@live.nl - Two versions are published; a Dutch and an English ones - tell me which ones you like (or both of course.RetrospectOscar Aleman Choro Music Flexible Records Hit of the Week-Durium Friends of the Keep Swinging blogKeep Swinging Contributions

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Le Chat Qui Pêche(Paris)(1957) - Open all night - every night. They aren't musicians, it's just a bunch of noise(Philly Joe Jones quotes the club owners). Hans Koert

In August 1957Jimmy Wormworth and his American Jazz Quintet were invited to perform at Le Chat Qui Pêche, a jazz cellar in Paris. They loved to sit in, in clubs like Saint-Germain to listen to other jazz men, like Kenny Clarke, Lucky Thompson and Nico Bunink.

George Braithwaite ( = Braith) and two so-called groupies(photo courtesy: Jimmy Wormworth)
Jimmy remembers the Dutch piano player Floris (Nico) Bunink, he named himself Nico since his 18th birthday, who lived in Paris since 1956 and who had found his own place inside the French jazz scene. He played in the Quintet of Barney Wilenup to 1958, in which Al Levitt played the drums. Nico and Al Levitt became friends and you can imagine how Jimmy and his friends were in luck to be able to meet those great jazz men in clubs like the Chat Qui Pêche and the Club Saint-Germain. We never played in the Club Saint-Germain - we only sat in after we played in the Chat Qui Peche,Jimmy told me. The Club Saint-Germain was on the left bank and during the 1950s great US musicians played in the club, like Lester Young and Miles Davis(late 1957) and Kenny Clarke even lived there for some times around 1958. Jimmy remembers that he and Nico became good friends. We became quite close.....very close friends.

George Braith with a Parisian groupy(photo courtesy: Jimmy Wormworth)
Nico left Europe for the States in 1959, where he became for a short time, a member of the Charles Mingus band, when Mingus heard him playing at Minton's Playhouse. When Jimmy had returned from his European trip they would look out for each other. We hung out in NYC, a lot, whenever he was here!!Jimmy remembers that Nico's brother, he doesn't remembers his name anymore, had a motorcycle and toured with him along all highlight of Paris: He had a motorcycle, a BMW, I think. I remember the motorcycle, because he took me on it, to see the Sacre Coeur Cathedral, on the Rive Droite ( the right bank of the river Seine) and the Montmartre neighbourhood, Place Pigalle, etc. Although Jimmy's second son was named Nico, Jimmy loves to refute that he wanted to honour Nico Bunink: Everybody asks me if I named my son after Nico Bunink, but that's not true; it was just another name I suggested to my wife and she liked it. A fan whose name sounded like Jean Plaisir ( photo courtesy: Jimmy Wormworth)
The Le Chat Qui Pêche was founded around 1955 in the Rue de la Huchette in the Latin Quarter; the cellar nightclub was run by a woman named Madame Ricard, who had worked in the French Resistance during the war. The Chat was just a small, one-floor club at that time and not yet as famous at it would become later.
Madame Marie-Thérèse Ricard (right) with critic Maurice Cullaz and two unknown at the groudfloor of Le Chat Qui Pêche. (photo courtesy: Chenz)(Thanks to Brownie)

I was told that we made her club so successful, because there were many bus tours coming to hear us, that, after us, Madame Ricard hired many famous American jazz musicians, so that she had the funds to add another floor in the club.Jimmy continues: I don't know if that's true, but I think it was the late Al Levitt, who told me that, because he stayed in Paris, after we came back to the USA. Others have similar recollections about Le Chat Qui Pêche. The cellar club was extremely popular but “terrible looking”, remembers Louis Victor Maily, a writer for Paris’s Jazz Hot magazine. Open all night every night.
Le Chat Qui Pêche is now a restaurant.
It was a popular place to play for US musicians where they found a second home, where they could play the kind of music they really liked, there by making lots of new friends in modern jazz, or Hard bop as it came to be know later, Bernie Newman writes in the liner notes of Donald Byrd Quartet "Au Chat qui Peche" 1958 ( Fresh sound FSCD-1028). US musicians liked the appreciative European audience, as it was quite different from what they were accustomed to in New York. Referring to Philly Joe Jones in Notes For Notes, the book with interviews by Art Taylor, who played in 1958 for three month in the Chat Qui Pêche, the owners of the club didn't really like the music they played; they only wanted to make money ......... Like the people who run the Chat Qui Peche, they don't care whether you're playing well or not. It's how much money they earn. They'll accept all the money and be smiling because they're making money, but deep down inside they say: They aren't musicians, it's just a bunch of noise. The club lasted up to 1970 when Madame Ricard sold her license; today it seems to be a restaurant with the same name.

Al Levitt and Jean Plaisir - August 1957(Photo courtesy: Jimmy Wormworth)
Jimmy says to remember that the played the whole month of August in Le Chat, which means that they had to leave for Amsterdam to be at the J. J. Johnson concert at the 17th of August and returned, possible the next day, to Paris. Fact is that they had to be back in time to embark at the HAL Line ship to New York which left from Rotterdam. I haven't found the cruise schedules for that year, but I found out that the HAL ship De Zuiderkruis left Rotterdam on the 2nd of September, 1957 and arrived in New York City on the 21st. Fact is, Jimmy remembers, that I had my 19th birthday celebrated inLe Chat Qui Pêche(14th of August):Al Levittgot me very drunk for the 1st time in my life, and I was so sick that I couldn't play at the Chat, that night!Hans Koert
keepswinging@live.nl

In a later blog I hope to inform you about the American Jazz Sextet concert as the opener of the Amsterdam J. J. Johnson concert (August 1957)
Thanks to Jimmy and Faith for their recollections.
Le Chat Qui Pêche was one of those numerous 1950s Parisian venues were jazz men could play. Madame Ricard ruled the cellar club and gave the musicans elbow-room. The US musicians liked to play there; the audience was quite different from what they were accustomed to in New York. Jimmy Wormworth and the his American Jazz Quitet (+ one) performed there during the month of August 1957 and met great musicians like Nico Bunink, the Dutch piano player that would make a career in the US playing with Charles Mingus, Zoot Sims and Stan Getz, to list some, but stayed fully underrated in his homeland. The Keep Swinging blog shares Jimmy Wormworth's recollection of this period and if you don't want to miss any contribution, follow it at Twitter (#keepswinging) or ask for its free newsletter. (keepswinging@live.nl)RetrospectOscar Aleman Choro Music Flexible Records Hit of the Week-Durium Friends of the Keep Swinging blogKeep Swinging Contributions

Friday, July 22, 2011

August 1957: The American Jazz Quintet in Paris.Yeahhh, kid, you were playing great!!(Kenny Clarke)Hans Koert
(Thanks to the recently released 1957 J.J. Johnson Quintet album What's New I came into contact with Jimmy Wormworth who was the leader of the American Jazz Sextet, which was scheduled to play the first set during that concert (17th of August,1957). Jimmy loved to share his remembrances about this concert and started to inform me about his first trip to Holland in 1956 as part of a Student Cruise Program of the Holland America Line which offered young music students a cheap opportunity to visit Europe while performing during the boat trip. Donn Andre, who was the leader of the Catatonic Five shared his remembrances of this period in:Donn Andre: The 1956 Dutch Catatonic Five Tourin a previous blog.
The rented EMW, probably in The Hague: In front: Roland Ashby and Sal Amico. (photo courtesy: Jimmy Wormworth)
During he summer of 1957the American Jazz Quintet ( + Dutch bass player Mike Fels (aka Thijs Chanowski)) toured with a kind of variety show, featuring artists like Zwarte Riekand Joop De Knegt, two Dutch popular vocalists, not related to jazz music at all. Mijn stiefvader was Jan Fels en ik heb in mijn Apeldoornse tijd ook zijn naam aangenomen.( = My stepfather was Jan Fels and when I lived in Apeldoorn I used his family name ) Thijs explained his pseudonymMike Fels. Chanowskiis mijn eigen naam die doorGer Lugtenburgvan de AVRO weer te voorschijn is gehaald toen ik daar ging werken als producer / regiseur. (= Chanowksiis my real name, which was used again byGer Lugtenburgof the AVRO-network again, when I started there as a producer). Thanks to Thijs,Lou Van Rees, the great Dutch jazz producer, invited the American Jazz Quintet (+ one) to play as the opener of the J.J.Johnson concert at the Concertgebouw inAmsterdam, the 17th of august, 1957, but first they had a gig in Paris.
Barry Rogers, the trombone player of the American All Stars with Jean, who was a fan, a hanger-on in Paris when we worked at the Chat Qui Peche (quote: Jimmy Wormworth) (photo courtesy: Jimmy Wormworth)
During the two weeks preceding the Concertgebouw concertJimmy Wormworth and his men travelled to Paris where they were invited to play at the famous Le Chat Qui Pêche club. The members of the band were: Jimmy Wormworth drummer and leader, Roland Ashby piano player, Sal Amico trumpet, Barry Rogers trombone and George Braithwaite (= George Braith) alto saxophone. Jimmy Wormworth had rented a car when they arrived in Holland late June 1957 to travel more easily. We had our own rented car, an EMW, which we purchased from a car dealership in The Hague, when we 1st arrived in Holland. The EMW's, full named Eisenacher Motoren Werk, were build in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany, later called East Germany; later the factory built the better known Wartburg motor car. I think that they cheated us, because the car was always breaking down, and we had to pay all the repairs. The repairs cost us a lot of our money,Jimmy remembers.George Braithwaite (= Braight), a I'm with the band girl, a groupie and trumpet player Sal Amico (Paris August 1957)( photo courtesy: Jimmy Wormworth)
The American Jazz Quintet was invited to Paris by the US drummer Al Levitt. Jimmy had met him in Scheveningen at the Pia Beck Flying Dutchman club the previous year, where he accompanied Pia Beck together with the Canadian bass player Lloyd Thompson. (He) got me some work for August in Paris at the club which eventually became famous, the name of which was Le Chat qui Pêche. In Paris Jimmy needed a double bass player and invited the French bass player Michel Gaudryto complete his band. Michel Gaudry, born in September 1928 in Eu (France), had studied the double bass at the Lausanne Conservatory in Switzerland and had returned to Paris in 1957 to become a sought after accompanist for musicians like Art Simmons, Billy Holiday and Carmen McRae who visited Paris in 1957. Michel Gaudry, who must be in his 80s now, has always been active in jazz and performed and recorded with dozens of well known jazz musicians fromBud Powell, Stephane Grappelli, Sonny Criss, Barney Kessel up to Sam Woodyard and Lionel Hampton ( to list some). Billie Holiday while in France (November1958) with Mal Waldron (piano), unknown bass player and Michel Gaudry on bass ( source: songbook1.wordpress.com) Jimmy remembers that they met Lucky Thompson, the US saxophone player, who had recorded as a leader on a dozen albums in Paris in 1956 and, back in the States, returned to France in the summer of 1957 to stay there up to 1962. In the summer of 1957 Lucky Thompson can be find in the recording studios with Martial Solal and Sammy Price and, in September 1957 with US drummer Kenny Clarke. In the intervening periods Lucky Thompson and his men must have played in the Paris club St. Germain where they heard him playing, together with the Dutch piano player Nico Bunink, who had replaced Martial Solal in Lucky Thompson's regular quartet.
Another Parisian snapshot: Jean Plaisir and Roland Ashby (photo courtesy: Jimmy Wormworth).
Jimmy don't remembers the bass player who was in the Lucky Thompson Quartet. It was notPierre Michelot, I think that the bassist was another guy named Pierre;Pierre Fol, maybe? I really cannot remember.Jimmy has sweet memories to Kenny Clarkewho played the drums: Klookwas the drummer; it was his gig and he was there. He was not on holiday! I think Al said that Barney (Kenny Clarkeused to play withBarney Wilen) was on summer holiday, like so many people in Paris in the summer. But, I’m not very sure of that.Jimmy sighs: So many of those people have died! I know that one night, after we sat in with Lucky (Thompson) and Nico (Bunink), we played "I Remember April". After we got off the bandstand, Klook ( = nickname for Kenny Clarke) said to come over to him and he was laughin and he gave me a kiss on the cheek, because he liked how I played that!! He said something to me, like, "Yeahhh, kid, you were playing great!!" I will remember that, for the rest of my life!Kenny Clarke told me that I was "playing great"!! (to be continued)
Thanks Jimmy and Faith for your kind support.Tomorrow: Jimmy Wormworth: The American Jazz Quintet in Paris (1957)-part twoHans Koert
keepswinging@live.nlJimmy Wormworth had met Al Levitt, the New York drummer, in the summer of 1956 while playing at the Pia Beck Flying Dutchman in Scheveningen, the beach resort of The Hague and when Jimmy returned to Holland the next year he was invited to play with his group in Le Chat Qui Pêche Club in Paris, August 1957. Jimmy Wormworth, now in his 70s, remembers the inspiring Paris jazzscene of 1957. Tomorrow part two of his Parisian gig with his recalls to Dutch piano player Nico Bunink. The Keep Swinging blog loves to share with you Jimmy Wormworth's recollections about his first trip to Europe in 1956 and 1957, when he played in Holland and France. If you don't want to miss any contribution, follow this subject at Twitter (#keepswinging) or ask for the free Keep Swinging newsletter ( keepswinging@live.nl)